Project description:N4 acetylcytidine (ac4C) modification mainly occurs on tRNA, rRNA, and mRNA, playing an important role in the expression of genetic information. However, it is still unclear whether microRNAs have undergone ac4C modification and their potential physiological and pathological functions. In this study, we identified that NAT10/THUMPD1 acetylates primary microRNAs (pri-miRNAs) with ac4C modification. Knockdown of NAT10 suppresses and augments the expression levels of mature miRNAs and pri-miRNAs, respectively. Molecular mechanism studies found that pri-miRNA ac4C promotes the processing of pri-miRNA into precursor miRNA (pre-miRNA) by enhancing the interaction of pri-miRNA and DGCR8, thereby increasing the biogenesis of mature miRNA. Knockdown of NAT10 attenuates the oncogenic characters of lung cancer cells by regulating miRNA production in cancers. Moreover, NAT10 is highly expressed in various clinical cancers and negatively correlated with poor prognosis. Thus, our results reveal that NAT10 plays a crucial role in cancer initiation and progression by modulating pri-miRNA ac4C to affect miRNA production, which would provide an attractive therapeutic strategy for cancers.
Project description:N4 acetylcytidine (ac4C) modification mainly occurs on tRNA, rRNA, and mRNA, playing an important role in the expression of genetic information. However, it is still unclear whether microRNAs have undergone ac4C modification and their potential physiological and pathological functions. In this study, we identified that NAT10/THUMPD1 acetylates primary microRNAs (pri-miRNAs) with ac4C modification. Knockdown of NAT10 suppresses and augments the expression levels of mature miRNAs and pri-miRNAs, respectively. Molecular mechanism studies found that pri-miRNA ac4C promotes the processing of pri-miRNA into precursor miRNA (pre-miRNA) by enhancing the interaction of pri-miRNA and DGCR8, thereby increasing the biogenesis of mature miRNA. Knockdown of NAT10 attenuates the oncogenic characters of lung cancer cells by regulating miRNA production in cancers. Moreover, NAT10 is highly expressed in various clinical cancers and negatively correlated with poor prognosis. Thus, our results reveal that NAT10 plays a crucial role in cancer initiation and progression by modulating pri-miRNA ac4C to affect miRNA production, which would provide an attractive therapeutic strategy for cancers.
Project description:More researches have revealed that N4-acetylcytidine (ac4C) affected a variety of cellular and biological processes. In order to better understand the ac4C roles in biology and disease, we present an antibody-free, fluorine assisted metabolic sequencing method to detect RNA N4-acetylcytidine, called ‘FAM-seq’. We have successfully applied FAM-seq to profile ac4C landscapes in humans. By comparing with the classic ac4C antibody sequencing method, we demonstrated that FAM-seq is a convenient and specific method for transcriptome-wide detection of ac4C. This method holds promise to detect nascent RNA ac4C modifications.
Project description:N-acetyltransferase 10 (NAT10)-mediated N4-acetylcytidine (ac4C) modification is crucial for mRNA stability and translation efficiency, yet the underlying function in mammalian preimplantation embryos remains unclear.
Project description:Despite the advance in diagnosis and treatment, the prognosis of osteosarcoma patients remains unsatisfied. Therefore, it is imperative to identify novel therapeutic targets for osteosarcoma. Through RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) combined with functional screening, N4-acetylcytidine (ac4C) acetyltransferase 10 (NAT10) was identified as a candidate therapeutic target in osteosarcoma. Upregulated NAT10 correlated with poor prognosis in osteosarcoma patients and NAT10 knockout drastically inhibited cell proliferation and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. NAT10 enhanced mRNA stability and translation efficiency of activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) through ac4C modification. ATF4 induced transcription of asparagine synthetase (ASNS), which catalyzes asparagine (Asn) biosynthesis. Asn promote protein and nucleotide synthesis, facilitating osteosarcoma progression. Overexpression of ATF4, ASNS or supplementation of asparagine rescue the tumor inhibitory effect of NAT10 knockout.
Project description:Despite the advance in diagnosis and treatment, the prognosis of osteosarcoma patients remains unsatisfied. Therefore, it is imperative to identify novel therapeutic targets for osteosarcoma. Through RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) combined with functional screening, N4-acetylcytidine (ac4C) acetyltransferase 10 (NAT10) was identified as a candidate therapeutic target in osteosarcoma. Upregulated NAT10 correlated with poor prognosis in osteosarcoma patients and NAT10 knockout drastically inhibited cell proliferation and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. NAT10 enhanced mRNA stability and translation efficiency of activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) through ac4C modification. ATF4 induced transcription of asparagine synthetase (ASNS), which catalyzes asparagine (Asn) biosynthesis. Asn promote protein and nucleotide synthesis, facilitating osteosarcoma progression. Overexpression of ATF4, ASNS or supplementation of asparagine rescue the tumor inhibitory effect of NAT10 knockout.
Project description:N4-acetylcytidine (ac4C), a newly identified epigenetic modification within mRNAs, has been characterized as a crucial regulator of mRNA stability and translation efficiency. And NAT10 is the only known RNA acetyltransferase. In our study, we documented the down-regulated expression of both ac4C and NAT10 during meiotic maturation of mouse oocytes. NAT10 knockdown resulted in ac4C reduction and impaired mouse oocyte maturation in vitro. These results indicated that NAT10-mediated ac4C modification plays a critical regulatory role in oocyte meiotic maturation. We further performed high-throughput sequencing with NAT10-overexpressed HEK293T cells and NAT10-binding transcripts to investigate the genes modulated by NAT10-mediated ac4C modification.